Team Liquid defends the land, wins EPICENTER 2017!

EPICENTER will not #BleedBlue as Liquid successfully defend their title against team Evil Geniuses.

A very exciting weekend concludes for EPICENTER 2017 as Team Liquid succesfuly defend their title against team Evil Geniuses in their Best of 5 finals, winning 3-1.

Coming off with flawless victories from both the Group and Semi-Final stages, the momentum was supposedly on EG for this match, although Liquid comes into the finals stage with some momentum of their own after sweeping teams Virtus.pro and LGD.FY in the quarter and semi finals.

Game 1 was nothing short of an absolute stomp from Liquid with an exceptional performance from GH‘s Wisp, who’s rotations easily secured the lanes for Liquid resulting in early farm spikes for Miracle–‘s Sven who scored back-to-back kills against Suma1L‘s famed Storm Spirt. The first game of the Best of 5 series is an absolute disaster for EG that they only managed to get 1 kill for the whole 17-minute duration of the game.

The second game of the series saw a strong comeback from EG at the back of the strong save plays from Cr1t‘s Oracle with the masterful timing on Purifying Flames and False Promise together with Zai‘s Living Armor from his Treant Protector which almost always extends the fight towards EG‘s favor, with Liquid‘s damage output not enough to secure important kills in many teamfights. Although Liquid still manages to hold their ground, the significant lack of farm on Miracle-‘s Juggernaut, partnered with the quick initiation from Universe‘s Bat Rider which caught Liquid‘s cores off guard multiple times, meant that EG will be taking game 2, tying the series 1-1.

Game 3 welcomed the Invoker for Miracle-, which is one of his most iconic heroes, with EG responding with a Mirana pick for Suma1L, however as the world looked on both team’s mid lane cores for flashy plays, it was Liquid‘s GH once again, now on the Earth Shaker, who forced a lot of issues for EG with multiple aggresive rotations resulting in high profile kills. Sensing that they have once again, lost the early game, EG starts to group up multiple times, trying to make something happen for their team as they utilizing the Moonlight Shadow for their ganks together with the Smoke of Deceit, however with Mind_Control handling the Bristleback on the frontlines, it only means that Liquid can easily pop and spot the smoke initation, which then leads to GH catching multiple heroes in his Echo Slam for a team fight that favors Liquid. The European squad’s final push involved a very slow siege with Mind_Control again on the front line, which enables the rest of his team to spot out EG‘s high ground positioning resulting in another near-perfect Echo Slam form GH once again, followed up by Miracle-‘s own AoE combo and MATUMBAMAN cleaning up the house with his Lycan, ultimately resulting in another GG from team #BleedBlue with Liquid now leading 2-1.

Confident with their 2-1 lead, Liquid knows that there is no way for them to let a Game 5 happen as they draft the GH Earthshaker again, together with the Bristleback on MATUMBAMAN who somehow ended up facing Suma1L‘s famed Puck at mid and also somehow ended up outplaying the Puck much to the surprise of many. Albeit a not so explosive start for both teams, except for the back and forth aggression at the bottom lane, EG start to secure their early game on the Net Worth both from kills and the farm as Arteezy gets the free farm, and EG start to engage on Liquid’s Tier 1s, although Liquid is not far behind. EG looked to force the issue early on in the game with multiple rotations from their cores and supports as they scramble to take the lead from Liquid, however, a disastrous engagement at the bottom lane results in a very easy Triple Kill from MATUMBAMAN, whose Quill Spray stacks dished out more than 5,000 worth of damage. With Liquid starting to pile up on the lead, EG attempts to try and secure fights on their own however with Universe‘s Axe struggling to find the right avenue for initiation, with Liquid easily zoning out and responding to EG‘s fight attempts with GH landing multiple hero Echo Slams partnered by the quick follow-up from Mind_Control‘s Dark Seer with the Vacumm-Wall of Replica combo.

The final push of the match comes from Liquid as they go for the high ground push at mid, with MATUMBAMAN and Miracle- on the front line, Universe tries to retaliate for EG and lands a near perfect Berserker’s Call but Liquid’s own control still turns the tides on their favor, a very, very extended teamfight results in multiple buybacks from EG as they try to hold their ground, however with a very huge lead on net worth, the teamfight control, the damage output, Liquid just ravages through EG’s base, finally forcing the GG call and Liquid defends their EPICENTER title.